“Whoever fust runs acrost this job will have blind staggers, don’t you forgit thet!”

“What’s Kells goin’ to figger?” asked Blicky, sharply.

“Nothin’ fer Kells!  He wasn’t in at the finish!” declared Budd.

Blicky gazed darkly at him, but made no comment.

“I tell you Blick, I can’t git this all right in my head,” said Smith.

“Say, ask Jim again.  Mebbe, now the job’s done, he can talk,” suggested Blicky.

Jim Cleve heard and appeared ready for that question.

“I don’t know much more than I told you.  But I can guess.  Kells had this big shipment of gold spotted.  He must have sent us in the stage for some reason.  He said he’d tell me what to expect and do.  But he didn’t come back.  Sure he knew you’d do the job.  And just as sure he expected to be on hand.  He’ll turn up soon.”

This ruse of Jim’s did not sound in the least logical or plausible to Joan, but it was readily accepted by the bandits.  Apparently what they knew of Kells’s movements and plans since the break-up at Alder Creek fitted well with Cleve’s suggestions.

“Come on!” boomed Gulden, from the fore.  “Do you want to rot here?”

Then without so much as a backward glance at the ruin they left behind the bandits fell into line.  Jesse Smith led straight off the road into a shallow brook and evidently meant to keep in it.  Gulden followed; next came Beady Jones; then the three bandits with the pack-horse and the other horses; Cleve and Joan, close together, filed in here; and last came Budd and Blicky.  It was rough, slippery traveling and the riders spread out.  Cleve, however, rode beside Joan.  Once, at an opportune moment, he leaned toward her.

“We’d better run for it at the first chance,” he said, somberly.

“No! ...  Gulden!” Joan had to moisten her lips to speak the monster’s name.

“He’ll never think of you while he has all that gold.”

Joan’s intelligence grasped this, but her morbid dread, terribly augmented now, amounted almost to a spell.  Still, despite the darkness of her mind, she had a flash of inspiration and of spirit.

“Kells is my only hope! ...  If he doesn’t join us soon—­then we’ll run! ...  And if we can’t escape that”—­Joan made a sickening gesture toward the fore—­“you must kill me before—­before—­”

Her voice trailed off, failing.

“I will!” he promised through locked teeth.

And then they rode on, with dark, faces bent over the muddy water and treacherous stones.

When Jesse Smith led out of that brook it was to ride upon bare rock.  He was not leaving any trail.  Horses and riders were of no consideration.  And he was a genius for picking hard ground and covering it.  He never slackened his gait, and it seemed next to impossible to keep him in sight.